From Atlanta to Asunci贸n
Sam Dickson's political activities, from radical anti-Communism to Holocaust denial, stretch across the Western Hemisphere.
Sam Dickson's right-wing political activities began in high school, when he teamed up with local Golderwaterites. Since then, the Atlanta white supremacist and mini-real estate mogul (see How Sam Dickson Got Rich) has been tied to numerous extremist groups and movements in the U.S. and around the world, from major Holocaust denial organizations to the Ku Klux Klan he frequently represented in court.
During the Cold War, Dickson was a member of the World Anti-Communist League, an international collection of right-wingers steeped in white supremacism and anti-Semitism. These tendencies became overt under the leadership of Dickson associate and British-born neo-Nazi Roger Pearson, who chaired the league in 1978-79. Pearson recruited former Nazis and allied the organization with every anti-Communist nation except one: Israel. In 1979, Dickson, as an American delegate to the league's conference in Asunci贸n, Paraguay, explained the group's anomalous support for the Palestine Liberation Organization to The Washington Post: "Israel has made herself repugnant... . Occasionally, one has to decide that the enemy of mine enemy is not my friend."
According to the Post, among those attending the 1979 conference were "former Nazi SS officers, two neo-fascists from Italy reportedly wanted for terrorist acts, members of Alpha 66, a right-wing Cuban exile group, and Pedro Ibanez Ojeda, who attended as Chilean President Augusto Pinochet's personal envoy." The Latin American wing of the league, which hosted the event, grew out of the remnants of Los Tecos, a World War II fascist group.
After the Cold War, communism disappeared from Dickson's enemies list. His longstanding obsession with race filled the vacuum. He now summarizes his philosophy as one of "racial nationalism" -- "My race is my nation." This is lens through which Dickson views all of American and even world history. Every war, every technological advance, every economic trend is interpreted solely through its impact on the white race. The automobile, for example, is a tragic development for Dickson because it allowed whites to escape the cities and thus "delay confronting" the race issue.
Dickson has been on intimate terms with the leading lights of the racial nationalist movement. When movement theorist Revilo Oliver died in 1994, Dickson performed master of ceremonies duties at a memorial symposium put on in his honor by the National Alliance, a leading neo-Nazi group. Dickson paid homage to Oliver in part by leading the small audience in song, including off-key versions of "Finlandia" and "Auld Lang Syne." The Georgian's love of European nationalist song is heartfelt, and has led David Duke to publicly gush, "He can sing all of the songs from our heritage!"
Dickson's involvement with Holocaust denial extends beyond his respect for Oliver, who coined the term "Holohoax." In 1989, Historical Review Press, a purveyor of Nazi books, music and memorabilia linked to British Holocaust denier David Irving, was incorporated under Dickson's name. (Irving is known to have stayed at Dickson's Key West home while avoiding criminal charges in Europe.) Dickson also writes for the Journal of Historical Review, another journal specializing in Holocaust denial.
Dickson's most notable contribution to the Review is the 1987 essay, "Shattering the Icon of Abraham Lincoln," which argues that Lincoln was an atheistic and brutal dictator who forced an unnecessary war on a country that did not want or need one. The article has been distributed widely on the Internet and is frequently referenced by neo-Confederate and other far-right groups in discussions of Lincoln.
"There appears to be no logical reason," writes Dickson in the essay, "why [the United States] could not have [remained half slave, half free] given responsible leadership and good will on both sides, until slavery was eliminated by the progress of technology."
